


I'll be in Scotland Afore Ye

by anonymous_sibyl



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-27
Updated: 2006-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 08:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_sibyl/pseuds/anonymous_sibyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things, Rory's a natural at, but for others she has to try harder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll be in Scotland Afore Ye

**Author's Note:**

> This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). None of the media or characters written about in my fanfiction belong to me and I make no profit from these works.

"Hey," he says, voice rising in question, then falling again in certainty, "Rory."

"Jess," she says, wondering how strange it is that she's surprised in some way to see his face, even though she came here seeking him. "I…"

"Need to cheat on your boyfriend again?"

That stops her dead, breaks her into little pieces, and maybe it shouldn't. It seems as if that's all she's ever used Jess for. "I deserved that."

"Yeah. You did. It's been a long time, I'm over it." He shrugs his shoulders, then smiles. "What brings you all the way out here?"

"You."

"Me. Well," he gestures at himself. "Here I am, at your service."

"So," she drags the word out as if she could hide behind it, but there's no point in hiding, not from him, and that's something she hopes like hell she's grown out of. "How have you been?"

"Good," he says. "I wrote a book. Another book. About a girl."

"I read it." She had. Again and again, had switched it from bag to bag as the seasons changed, and read it until the pages had curled at the edges. She'd bought a second copy, and that one is pristine, tucked away in the back of a drawer, next to a copy of "Howl," a letter from Dean, and the scarf Logan gave her at that first Life and Death brigade event. There are other things in there, too, a glove, a ring, ticket stubs: memories of men past. She's a sentimental girl.

"What'd you think?"

"Is it me? The girl in your book. Is she me?" He doesn't answer and she thinks this is a big mistake, grand even on the scale of Gilmore Mistakes. "No. Of course not. Why would she be? This was wrong. A bad idea. I should… I should go."

She's half out the door before he stops her with a hand on her shoulder. He's so close she can feel his breath moving her hair.

"Rory."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"Yes?"

He spins her around to face him. "Yes. The girl in my book, she's you." He laughs. "You're my inspiration, Gilmore."

"Oh, right. Right." She should have known. "Like a muse."

"Yeah," he says, dropping his hand. "A muse. Or the girl I can't get over."

In a crazy way that's all she's ever been good at. Hilary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Christiane Amanpour, The Reigning Lorelai, the ex-Mrs. Huntzberger, those were all roles she aspired to or learned to play, but the girl Jess Mariano couldn't forget, that she was a natural at.

"Did you like it?"

"It was wonderful, Jess." She crosses her arms over her chest and looks away. "You're very talented. I always knew that."

"But did you like it?"

"No."

"Did you like her?"

"No."

He laughs, a little bitter, and a lot like the old Jess who used to hide behind his smirk and his hair. "Good."

"She was cruel." She could cry over this, and she had, huddled between Paris and Lane, blitzed on martinis, just as she had after every other mistake in her life. There was a time, once, when she'd refused to wallow, but that girl was long gone, and this one had learned that she couldn't go on alone. "I'm not like that, Jess."

"She's not cruel," he says, and Rory knows he means her, specifically, just as she knows they haven't been talking about his book since she first asked about it. "She's unsure."

"Scared."

"Of what?" he snaps. "Of yourself? Of me? Of being happy, Rory? Of taking a damn chance and being happy?"

For some reason the yelling pleases her. He's her Jess when he does that, not this kind of creepy Zen-like Jess with all the answers and the inner peace, but the Jess who remembers how to fight for things. The Jess who might fight for her. She can't tell him any of that, though, all she can do is yell back. "YES!"

"WHY?"

"Because it always goes wrong!" She turns away to try and hide the tears. She always has, she's hidden her tears just as she's hidden all her other failings from everyone in her life. There's no point, though, because Jess notices, and brushes his hand across her cheek, wiping the saltwater away. Stupid perfect Rory, she even fails at failing. "It always goes wrong, Jess! I always lose!"

He wipes his thumb under her eye and a fresh tear spills in its wake. "You never lost me."

It's cliché, and she hates it, but she falls into his arms when he puts them around her, just collapses into his body and breathes, or at least tries to, but she fails at even that and ends up gulping in air between sobs. She tries to talk to him, to tell him she's sorry, but there's no way he can understand her garbled blubbering and she's probably apologizing to people who aren't even there because Jess never seemed to need apologies.

That was where the girl in his book went wrong. She baked cookies and knitted sweaters, but never apologized, all because she believed the man who told her she never had to be sorry, like love was some excuse to be heartless and be forgiven, as if actions were all that mattered and words were empty. Years ago, when Rory was a journalist, she knew words were full, and she trusted them, and their layered meanings, to guide and protect her. Jess never forgot that, even though she did.

She wants to tell him that she lost him, a hundred times over, and that she's gotten just what she deserves, but that's the coward's way out, so instead, this once, she chooses the hard road.

Jess smiles at her when she pulls away.


End file.
